Hi everybody, I´m on vacation right now, have been since last week, and starting to get around a bit, and was just thinking that I would really like to let you all know about the place that we went to today and encourage some of you to go & check it out for yourselves, as it is really something.
It´s called "El Soplao" here is a link to some links, which you can go through;
It is a humongous journey to be sure, we travelled from my place in Santander today, as I´m quite near to the FEVE train station, and it is so far up in the frelling mountains that I was begining to wonder if we had made a mistake by going, because, after the long train jaunt, it´s all onto coaches for yet another hour crawling up into and all around the Cantabrian mountains, until finally we got there at about 11:30 (ish) about 2 hours or so in total, but I now have to say, I would do it all over again, because, !!MY GOD!! it is totally friggin out of this world, and YOU MUST GO AND SEE THIS. The guided tour that we got.......... (we were in a large group) (35 euros all included, Lunch as well,).......was quite brilliant, and worth every euro. I´ve been up to mountainous places in Spain before, and down into caves etc, but this place is Incredible.
It is a huge cavern of stalactites and stalagmites, and various other crystaline structures, some of which have been forming down there for thousands of years, and untouched or disturbed by humans, or any other form of disturbance, so some of the formations that you get to see have literally been sitting there for many, many centuries.
I can´t say too much right now, as I´m rushing to make some calls, but will give more details about my days outing as soon as I can.
Please do check out the links, I know 35 euros sounds like a lot of dosh to some, but what I got was well worth it, the tour guides were brilliant, spoke really well, are very articulate, which is essential for us non natives. If you have never been driven 5000 feet up into the mountains, and then taken half a kilometre down into a mine on a mini train, this is something that you have yet to experince, I have never been down a mine, not like this one, the crystal structures down there are huge and breathtaking.
By the way, they do, do another guided tour down there, which as I´understand, takes people down to two and a half kilometros, through the cuevas, but that for me seems to be a little too deep & scary I´m afraid.
Just a quick update, as I´ve been going hither & dither lately, I just wanted to say something about "Comillas" (google it) we went on thursday, it was nice/okay kind of, makes a nice change to all the usual coastal towns, and yesteday we went over to "SUANCES" (again, goggle it) It was great, I love that humongous beach, I´ve not seen one that wide before, it is beautiful all around that coastline, some great eating places, prices pretty reasonable, we had a nice relaxing day by the sea, went back to Torrelavega to have yet another great dinner, for the umpteenth time this week, and then back home to Santander, man did it rain here last night and agan today, I don´t know if it did in Madrid, but here in Cantabria it went mental with the rain.
Also, last week, we visited the village of Santillana del Mar, which I thoroughly recommend, depending on what your interested in, it´s very, very old, but has a curious and charming character about it, nad is good for half a day out, and great for amatuer photographers like me, to get in some practice. Today, we took a run over to Liencres on the coast, but it was too foggy, so headed back over to Lierganes, and old, old, almost medieval Spanish town tucked far. far away in between the Cantabrian mountains, and this place is very picturesque indeed, quite charming, great for fotos again, we enjoyed it, the cheapest menu del dia over there is 14.00 Euros, and not bad for what it is, but one place had starters going for 15 to 25 euros...\0/ yikes!!! we ran away from that one of course, but other than that, it´s a cool place, again depending on what you´re interested in, I personally like the strong stone contruction of the buildings/houses/bridges etc.
